Join us for the Anti-Semitism Community Education Summit at De Anza College featuring Alyza D. Lewin on Thursday, Feb. 24! Register here to join the Community Forum Panel Defining Antisemitism – Register Here! Join the Faculty Director for the Office of Equity, Social Justice, and Multicultural Education featuring panelists from The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (Alyza D. Lewin) and The National Jewish Advocacy Center to learn more about Defining Anti-Semitism (Dr. Mark Goldfeder).
Campus Reform WATCH: Are DEI initiatives fueling anti-Semitism in higher ed? Brandeis Center Founder Kenneth Marcus joins Campus Reform to discuss an investigation of alleged anti-Semitism at Stanford University. Marcus adds historical context to these incidents, explaining how anti-Semitism is dealt with differently depending on whether the hatred comes from the left or right. Peter Cordi | Reporter Wednesday, February 16, 2022 9:04 AM The Louis B. Brandeis Center Founder Kenneth Marcus joined Campus Reform to discuss anti-Semitism in higher education in wake of recent revelations that Stanford University has fostered an environment of anti-Jewish rhetoric among faculty. Marcus served as the Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights in the Trump administration. “What’s interesting about Stanford and what I think makes it reflective of a much broader trend that we’re seeing across higher education, and also in other areas, is that the problem here isn’t just on the campus,” Marcus told Campus Reform. “It is in this specific part of campus that is supposed to deal with hate and bias. It is in the diversity, equity, and inclusion program at Stanford,” he continued. “In other words, it’s in exactly the program that’s supposed to eliminate these problems rather than creating them.” Marcus noted that, “We’ve seen anti-Semitism in DEI programs in other parts of the country, at a higher ed level.” “When universities see right-wing, traditional antisemitism, swastikas,” Marcus explained, they typically deal with these issues well because “it doesn’t take a lot of courage for a university president to speak out against neo-Nazism.” Yet, the Brandeis Center reported in 2022 that DEI leaders ignored “allegations of Zoom bombings with swastikas out of concern that it would draw attention away from anti-Black anti-racism concerns.” “We hope that now that we have made very clear that they are continuing to discriminate against Jewish students in the year 2022. And not just students, but our cases about staff, administrators, health professionals,” Marcus stated. Watch the full interview above for Kenneth Marcus’ full reaction and insight into this growing trend. Follow @PeterCordi on Twitter
On Friday, February 11, 2022, The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (“LDB”) submitted comments in response to the proposed regulations governing Civil Rights Data Collection (“CRDC”) issued by the Department of Education (“ED”). Read the submission here: Brandeis Center Comments on CRDC
Algemeiner ~ By Dion J. Pierre | Feb. 11, 2022 ~ Jewish SUNY New Paltz Students Said Excluded From Sexual Assault Awareness Group Over Support for Israel
Algemeiner ~ February 9, 2022 ~ US Lawmakers Call on Dept. of Education to End Delay of Campus Antisemitism Guidance by Dion J. Pierre Thirty-nine members of the US Congress have urged the Department of Education to issue promised Title VI guidance to protect Jewish students from antisemitism on college campuses, and to resolve long-outstanding complaints of discrimination. “Antisemitism has been on the rise in the United States and around the globe,” said the letter, sent Friday to the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), in an effort led by Democrat Ted Lieu of California. “This wave of antisemitism has had a detrimental impact at many American colleges and universities.” Students and pedestrians walk through the Yard at Harvard University, after the school asked its students not to return to campus after Spring Break and said it would move to virtual instruction for graduate and undergraduate classes, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., March 10, 2020. Thirty-nine members of the US Congress have urged the Department of Education to issue promised Title VI guidance to protect Jewish students from antisemitism on college campuses, and to resolve long-outstanding complaints of discrimination. “Antisemitism has been on the rise in the United States and around the globe,” said the letter, sent Friday to the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), in an effort led by Democrat Ted Lieu of California. “This wave of antisemitism has had a detrimental impact at many American colleges and universities.” The letter noted reports of Jewish students increasingly concealing their identity and avoiding social activities or classes that may expose to them to antisemitic bullying and harassment. It also cited a recent survey by Alums for Campus Fairness in which 75% of 500 respondents said that antisemitism remains a “very serious problem.” “This demonstrates that Jewish students need assistance and protection from the growing threat of antisemitism on American campuses,” said the letter. A partial tattoo kit offered at auction in Israel as an Auschwitz artifact is highly unlikely to have been used… The lawmakers called on the Biden administration to quickly issue new rules based on the previous administration’s Executive Order on Combating Antisemitism (EO 13899), which directed the OCR to apply Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to complaints of antisemitic discrimination and base them on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. The Biden administration has postponed action on EO 13899 until December 2022, and experts on Wednesday praised the lawmakers’ call to end the delay over its implementation. “It’s good to see that so many members of Congress understand what’s going on at university campuses and are pushing the Biden administration to take action soon,” Kenneth Marcus, former Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights at OCR and founder the Louis D. Brandeis Center of Human Rights Under Law told The Algemeiner. “The administration really can’t wait until the end of the year to signal its focus on this issue,” he said. “It’s understandable that the rule-making has been delayed given the limited bandwidth that the Department of Education has for formal regulations, but given how bad things have been on so many campuses, this is a bad time to make Jewish students wait so long to get guidance from the Biden administration.” The Congressional letter also urged the OCR to provide technical assistance to campuses for the fight against antisemitism, and to address the apparent “significant delay” in handling a number of antisemitism and discrimination Title VI complaints — with some still unresolved since 2018. Recent complaints with the Department of Education have focused on Stanford University, where Jewish professionals were allegedly assigned to segregated discussion groups for white members against their objections; and at Brooklyn College, where Jewish students were allegedly harassed and pressured into identifying as white in discussions around social justice. “Harassment of Jewish students can’t be tolerated,” Marcus said. “And I don’t think we will get significant action from universities unless university administrators and general counsels unless the Biden administration makes clear that this is a priority. That’s something that shouldn’t take another year. It should happen tomorrow.” The pro-Israel education nonprofit StandWithUs (SWU) said the Congressional letter “sends a clear message that our elected officials are concerned about rising antisemitism” in education. “It is our sincere hope that the DOE will respond to this letter expeditiously and that this effort will lead to improved response time to these complaints,” SWU said in a statement Wednesday. “This, in turn, will lead to increased protection for Jewish and non-Jewish students who care about Israel, and Israeli faculty, staff, and students on campuses nationwide.”
Jewish Journal ~ Aaron Bandler | Feb. 10, 2022 ~ Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) headlined a bipartisan letter of nearly 40 members of Congress calling on the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to end their delays on investigating complaints of antisemitism on college campuses. The February 4 letter, which was also signed by Representatives Brad Sherman (D-CA), Ted Deutch (D-FL) and Don Bacon (R-IL), noted that according to a recent FBI report, 60% of all 2020 religious hate crimes in the United States targeted Jews. The letter also pointed to an August 2021 report from Alums for Campus Fairness finding that 75% of students and alumni view antisemitism on campus as “a very serious problem,” almost 70% avoided places on campus because of fears of antisemitism and nearly 50% said that antisemitism has gotten worse on campus. “This demonstrates that Jewish students need assistance and protection from the growing threat of Antisemitism on American campuses,” the letter stated. The letter went on to list three calls of action to OCR, the first being that OCR should “provide technical assistance” to college campuses about antisemitism. The second argued that “there appears to be a significant delay” in OCR completing their investigations on antisemitism complaints falling under the purview of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination on campuses. “Therefore, for each Title VI complaint that has been pending in OCR for more than 180 days, we request that you provide the following information: (a) the status of the case; (b) the reason(s) it has not been resolved; and (c) an estimated time frame for its resolution,” the letter stated. The final call was for OCR to end their delays on codifying the executive order that then-President Donald Trump signed at the end of 2019 stating that Title VI covers antisemitism on college campuses. The Biden administration initially announced that the codification would occur in January 2022, and then pushed it back from to December 2022. “These delays in processing Title VI complaints are delaying justice and potentially allowing discrimination to persist on campuses throughout the country,” the letter concluded. A spokesperson at OCR confirmed to the Journal that they have received the letter and will be responding to members of Congress directly. Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted, “Bravo @tedlieu for your leadership on this bipartisan effort to turn the 2019 EO on #antisemtism into law and ensure that [the Department of Education] truly commits to combating it on college campuses.” StandWithUs issued a statement thanking Lieu and the other 38 congressional members for the letter to OCR. “This initiative sends a clear message that our elected officials are concerned about rising antisemitism in the educational context, and are being vigilant to ensure that federal taxpayer dollars are not used to support entities that fail in their responsibilities to adequately remedy antisemitic environments,” the pro-Israel educational group said. “It is our sincere hope that the DOE will respond to this letter expeditiously and that this effort will lead to improved response time to these complaints. This, in turn, will lead to increased protection for Jewish and non-Jewish students who care about Israel, and Israeli faculty, staff and students on campuses nationwide.” Kenneth L. Marcus, Founder and Chairman of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the former Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights, told the Journal in a phone interview that “we’re delighted that Ted Lieu is taking leadership on this. It was great to see his letter and the fact that so many members of Congress joined him in expressing concern about what Jewish students are facing on campus as well as ah insistence that the Biden administration do something about it.” Marcus went on to explain that he advocated for the Trump administration to codify the executive order before the Biden administration took over in order to give it “greater durability” in the face of “vicissitudes of changing administrations.” “This didn’t get done by the end of the Trump administration, so it landed in the Biden administration’s lap,” he said. “I wasn’t sure whether the Biden team would want to codify the executive order. Generally speaking, new administrations don’t always want to build on the work of their predecessors and of course the Biden administration has expressed considerable disagreement with what was done by President Trump.” Marcus added he was “really pleased” that the Biden administration indicated it would codify the executive order, but said that the “good news was somewhat tarnished when the current administration announced another delay in the much-needed regulation dealing with Jewish students.” He posited that the delays may simply be due to limited resources hindering the process of codifying new regulations. “I’d like to think it doesn’t reflect something worse.” In order to codify a regulation, it must be formally proposed through the federal register, provide time for public comment, and be approved by the Department of Justice, Office of Management and Budget and the Small Business Administration, Marcus said. Marcus argued that it is imperative for the Biden administration to communicate with school administrators about the issues of antisemitism on campus, which he said they haven’t really been doing. “The administrators need to hear that, because otherwise they’re going to think that it’s not a priority for the regulators and investigators,” Marcus said. “College administrators are responsive to the people who regulate them, and so it’s really important—even during this period when the regulation is pending––for the Education Department, the Justice Department and perhaps even the White House, to send clear signals that Jewish students can’t be forgotten in the rush to deal with other issues. “That’s what so important about the congressional letter,” he added. “It signals to the Biden administration that OCR needs to address antisemitism and that can have the effect of signaling to college administrators and public schools that they too need to deal with problems that Jewish students are now facing.”
NY Daily News ~ By Kenneth L. Marcus, Feb 9, 2022 ~ Last week the U.S. Department of Education announced it had opened an investigation into allegations that professors advanced the racist and ethnic stereotype that Jews are “white” and “privileged” and therefore oppress people of color, ignoring centuries of Jewish discrimination and invoking an age-old and dangerous anti-Semitic trope concerning Jewish power and control. Sound familiar? Well, it should. A huge spotlight has been shined on this topic since Whoopi Goldberg was suspended from “The View” last week for insisting that “the Holocaust isn’t about race” because Nazis and Jews are “two white groups of people.” Then the Anti-Defamation League, which had criticized Goldberg, was chastised for embracing a definition of “racism” similar to hers. Let me rewind. In 2020, the ADL decided to “re-define” racism as “The marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.” This excludes anti-Semitism, since Jews have been seen as white, off-white, non-white, white-passing or white-adjacent, but not as “people of color.” It also excludes mistreatment of Asians by other minorities. Last week, after realizing its definition actually contributed to the problem, the ADL issued a new definition: “Racism occurs when individuals or institutions show more favorable evaluation or treatment of an individual or group based on race or ethnicity.” ADL’s new definition is better, but “interim.” Worse, ADL still defines “white supremacy” as “the systematic marginalization or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges people who identify as white.” This has the same problems as their old definition of racism. Why is this so hard? The wrong-headedness of these notions has become clear in our post-Whoopi moment. Yet they follow logically from deeply entrenched orthodoxies. In her best-selling book “White Fragility,” Robin DiAngelo insisted that “only whites can be racist,” because whites have “power and privilege” over people of color. Ibram X. Kendi defined racism as support for policies that widen racial inequality. The Goldberg variation was to apply this to the Holocaust, where its moral incoherence is clear. But the dangers can be seen elsewhere. And now we circle back to Brooklyn. At Brooklyn College, professors insisted that Jews are white, privileged, systemic racists. One student objected and was shut down. “I’m a Hispanic person of color,” she said, “and yet even I was told by faculty and administrators in the program that because I am Jewish, I enjoy the privileges of whiteness and that my skin color would not save me.” That student has since left the program because the harassment of Jewish students as white, privileged oppressors was so bad. At Stanford, Jews have been pressured to join a “whiteness accountability” affinity group, created for “staff who hold privilege via white identity” and “are white identified, may be newly grappling with or realizing their white identity, or identify as or are perceived as white presenting or passing (aka seen as white by others even though you hold other identities).” And this is not unique to academia. Major companies, including Walmart and Amex, base their corporate training on the same ideology which has now been shown to be indefensible, thanks to Whoopi and the ADL. Many government entities are embracing this same dangerous approach. This is wrong. As Ali Rattansi explained in his introduction to “Racism,” “The term ‘racism’ was coined in the 1930s, primarily as a response to the Nazi project of making Germany judenrein, or ‘clean of Jews.’ The Nazis were in no doubt that Jews were a distinct race and posed a threat to the Aryan race to which authentic Germans supposedly belonged.” Goldberg’s comments, while deeply incorrect, reflect current orthodoxies infecting schools, universities and major corporations. In rejecting her mistakes, we must reexamine the ideology that sustained them. At Brooklyn College, Jewish students should be given the same opportunities as all other students, including the right to define their identity and express their perspective. Racism means what it has always meant: treating people differently because of their race. It must be eradicated wherever it is and whomever it targets. Marcus is founder and chairman of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which has filed civil rights complaints against Stanford University and Brooklyn College, and author of “The Definition of Anti-Semitism.” He served as the 11th assistant U.S. secretary of education for civil rights.
Inside Higher Ed ~ By Elizabeth Redden | February 7, 2022 ~ The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating a complaint alleging that Jewish students enrolled in Brooklyn College’s graduate mental health counseling program have been subjected to anti-Semitic harassment from professors and peers. The complaint, filed on behalf of two Jewish students in the master’s program, alleges that professors in the program “have maligned Jews on the basis of race and ethnic identity by advancing the narrative that all Jews are white and privileged and therefore contribute to the systemic oppression of people of color.” It also alleges that Jewish students have “been bullied in class discussions and on social media by student peers who target Jewish students using the same ethnic stereotypes, antisemitic tropes and divisive concepts that faculty members promote in their courses.” The complaint, which comes at a time of rising anti-Semitism on American college campuses, alleges that Jewish students who pushed back or expressed distress “were met with further harassment and intimidation from faculty and administrators, who told students to ‘get your whiteness in check’ and to ‘keep your head down’ rather than challenge the status quo.” A spokesperson for Brooklyn College said in a written statement the institution “unequivocally denounces antisemitism in any form and does not tolerate it on its campus.” “While the College cannot comment on ongoing investigations, it is committed to working cooperatively and fully with the U.S. Department of Education,” the statement said. “The College appreciates the important role Jewish Americans have played in the rich history of the country, the city, and the campus.” The statement also cites the college’s “We Stand Against Hate” initiative, which offers various programs “to celebrate the voices that make up our diverse campus community. ‘We Stand Against Hate’ also serves as a platform to denounce antisemitism that touches our community.” Brooklyn College, which is part of the City University of New York, has been repeatedly recognized by U.S. News & World Report as the most ethnically diverse college in its region. The complaint was filed in February 2021 by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a nonprofit legal organization that focuses on anti-Semitism on college campuses, on behalf of the two students identified only as Doe 1 and Doe 2. While Doe 1’s gender or race is not identified in the complaint, Doe 2 is identified as a Hispanic woman of color. Doe 1, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of facing further harassment or discrimination, said being a Jew in the program “is dangerous and scary and upsetting. Being told to quiet down all the time, it’s exhausting.” “When someone would say for example, ‘I’m Jewish,’ professors would say, ‘No, you’re not, you’re white, and you don’t understand oppression and you need to sit down and you need to be quiet and you need to let the Black people in the program speak about their experiences’ and wouldn’t allow us to speak about ours,” the student said. The complaint describes a number of alleged incidents during the fall 2020 semester centering around questions of Jewishness, whiteness and privilege. In one described incident in August 2020, Doe 2 attended a class where the professor allegedly stated, “In sum and substance, that Ashkenazi Jews who immigrated to America have become part of the oppressors in this country.” (Names of professors have been redacted in the version of the complaint made public by the Brandeis Center.) In another alleged incident in September 2020, a professor reportedly “instructed students to discuss and rank their identities.” Doe 1 shared with fellow students they felt a strong affinity with Jewish identity and did not feel an affinity with white identity, and therefore ranked Jewish identity first and white identity last. Fellow students responded by saying the complainants’ white identity “should have figured more prominently” in the ranking, and said that because Doe 1 “was white and part of the dominant culture” they “did not understand oppression” and were incorrect in ranking their identities. In a similar alleged incident in November 2020, a professor gave students an assignment on “racial identity development” requiring them to choose and complete a worksheet “that most aligns with your own ethnic identity.” While worksheets were available for a variety of identities, there was no worksheet for Jewish identity, and the only reference to Jewishness was in the worksheet for “White Racial Identity Development.” The worksheet “implied that white identity and the privilege that flows from it overshadow other identities,” including Jewish identity. When Doe 1 expressed discomfort about identifying as having “white privilege” in the worksheet, other students responded by saying they were in denial. The complaint also alleges that several students bullied Jewish students on a WhatsApp group chat. It alleges that during a September 2020 exchange—“during a disagreement between students about Martin Luther King Jr. and Sigmund Freud”—one student in the program expressed a desire to strangle a Jewish student with whom they disagreed. After Doe 1 expressed discomfort, the student who allegedly made the threat accused Doe 1 of being “part of the dominant culture” of white people who “continue to perpetuate power structures.” Denise Katz-Prober, director of legal initiatives for the Brandeis Center, said that at Brooklyn College and elsewhere, “Jews are being relegated to this category of white privileged oppressors in a way that not only invokes dangerous age-old antisemitic stereotypes about power and control but denies Jewish history, the complexity of the Jewish experience, as well as erases Jewish identity.” The case at Brooklyn College bears similarities to complaints filed last year by two members of Stanford University’s Counseling and Psychological Services staff alleging anti-Jewish bias in a diversity, equity and inclusion program. The complaints alleged that the DEI program for Stanford’s counselors, intended to help them better serve a diverse group of students, “engages in intentional racial segregation through race-based affinity groups” and “relies upon racial and ethnic stereotyping and scapegoating by describing all Jews as white or white-passing and therefore complicit in anti-Black racism.” The complaints at Stanford, which were also submitted with legal assistance from the Brandeis Center, are still pending before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to Katz-Prober. It also bears resemblance to the controversy that erupted last week after actor and television personality Whoopi Goldberg said the Holocaust was “not about race.” When a colleague challenged her assertion, saying the Holocaust was driven by white supremacy, Goldberg responded, “But these are two white groups of people.” Goldberg later apologized for her comments. Jonathan Sarna, the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History and director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, in Massachusetts, said both the Brooklyn College and Whoopi Goldberg controversies “are asking the question of what makes one a person of color, and what defines race and are Jews white folks.” Sarna said anti-Semitism has “put the lie” to the argument that Jews are like other white folks. “Anyone who reads either anti-Semitism on the extreme right or the extreme left knows perfectly well that they recognize these folks as a separate group. They are Jews,” Sarna said. “I think increasingly we are seeing pushback by Jews against those who want to lump them with other white people—‘Oh you’re just white folks, people of privilege’—partly because that’s not historically true and partly I think in response to anti-Semitism. We are seeing Jews increasingly conscious of their separate identity, and they want to be known as Jews,” Sarna said. Hasia Diner, the Paul and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University, said while students have the right to see themselves as they wish, under American law, Jews have historically been treated as white. “Never did any state in the United States create separate institutions for Jews or put them in the same institutions with people defined as not white,” said Diner, who added that about a quarter of Southern Jews were slave owners. That doesn’t mean Jews haven’t faced discrimination, Diner said. “But is the issue, did Jews enjoy a set of privileges that came from being white? They did.” Pamela Nadell, the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History at American University in Washington, D.C., is at work on a history of anti-Semitism in America. She said the U.S. Census “has continued to insist that Jews are a religious group, when of course this is one of the great difficulties of defining the Jews. While yes, Jews are a religious group in one sense, in another sense they have also been categorized for a very long time as a member of a racial group, and when that fell out of favor after the Holocaust they’ve been seen as an ethnic group.” Nadell said colleges should be tackling anti-Semitism head-on in their DEI programming. “When you have these diversity, equity and inclusion programs, anti-Semitism is almost never part of the question of examining diversity and equity,” she said. “The position of the Jews falls outside of those programs.” Benjamin S. Selznick, an assistant professor of postsecondary analysis and leadership at James Madison University in Virginia, who has studied campus climate issues as they pertain to Jewish students, echoed the importance of incorporating issues of religion and worldview into conversations about campus inclusivity. Selznick said the Brooklyn College complaint highlights how important it is for students to feel safe in expressing their worldviews. Recent polls have found that large numbers of Jewish students don’t feel safe on college campuses. “It’s very hard to fully engage and fully learn and fully participate if you don’t feel safe in expressing your identity,” Selznick said. “That is important for Jews, especially given the state of the world.” Doe 2, the complainant who identifies as both Jewish and Hispanic, decided to leave Brooklyn College’s master’s program in mental health counseling because of the climate. “I just started to not want to be around these people, to feel scared, really just like I was walking on eggshells,” the student said. “It’s not a mentally healthy place for somebody to be, especially as a person of color. It’s not like I don’t know what discrimination is, and now to be told all of those experiences don’t matter and your skin color doesn’t matter because now you’re essentially white and privileged because Jews are white and privileged, which negates all of the history of the Jews, and on a personal level it completely erases my lived experience, and for it to be fortified by the students and the teachers—it’s crazy-making.” By Elizabeth Redden
PRESS RELEASE ~ Contact: Nicole Rosen – 202-309-5724 U.S. Dept. of Education Opens Investigation Into Anti-Semitism at Brooklyn College Professors Maligned Jews as White, Privileged Oppressors and Advanced Age-Old Tropes Concerning Jewish Power Washington, D.C., February 3: The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced it has opened a formal investigation into a complaint alleging Jewish students at Brooklyn College have been subjected to severe and persistent anti-Semitic harassment from both professors and peers. OCR evaluates all complaints it receives, but it only pursues investigations in those it determines warrant a more thorough investigation. The complaint OCR will investigate was submitted on behalf of Jewish students in the Mental Health Counseling master’s program at Brooklyn College and alleges that Brooklyn College has allowed a hostile environment to proliferate on its campus in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was prepared by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. The OCR complaint outlines how professors have maligned Jews on the basis of race and ethnic identity, advancing age-old anti-Semitic tropes concerning Jewish power, conspiracy and control, and endorsing the narrative that Jews are “white” and privileged and therefore contribute to systemic oppression of people of color. For example, in one class a professor stated that Ashkenazi Jews who immigrated to America have become part of the oppressors in this country. In another instance when students were asked to rank their identities, and a Jewish student ranked Jewish identity before white identity, the Jewish student was berated and told they are part of the dominant culture that does not understand oppression. Relegating Jewish students into white-only categories occurred multiple times in the program. Fellow students also bullied and harassed Jewish students in classes and on social media using the same ethnic stereotypes, tropes and divisive concepts that faculty promoted in their courses. For example, in a WhatsApp student group chat, a student expressed her desire to strangle a Jewish student and others showed support. When another Jewish student came to the victim’s defense, the student who made the attack accused the Jewish student of being racist, claiming they were “part of the dominant culture” of “white people” who “continue to perpetuate power structures.” When the Jewish students asked college administrators to intervene and establish ground rules against threats and bullying, fellow students objected that ground rules do not apply when racism needs to be called out, assigning Jews the role of racist oppressors. “By advancing the racist and ethnic stereotype that all Jews are ‘white’ and ‘privileged’ and therefore oppress people of color, faculty members, students and course assignments in the [Mental Health Counseling] program thereby invoke the classical anti-Semitic trope that Jews possess disproportionate power and influence in society, which they use for nefarious purposes against non-Jews, while also subjecting them to racial stereotypes about ‘whites,’” explained the Brandeis Center in its complaint. Jewish students who challenged these divisive narratives or shared their distress about the anti-Jewish hostility in the program were met with further harassment and intimidation from faculty and administrators, who told students to “get your whiteness in check” and to “keep your head down” rather than challenge the status quo. For example, when one of the Jewish students tried to explain to an administrator that Jews should not have to identify as white, the administrator told the student that was a foregone conclusion. When another Jewish student explained they are in fact a Hispanic person of color, an administrator implied being Jewish automatically supersedes Latin descent and makes one white and privileged. The severe and persistent harassment of Jewish students in the program on the basis of their race and ethnicity has created a hostile climate. In this hostile environment, Jewish students are afraid that if they express their views in class or to their peers, they will be further disparaged and harassed by their professors and other students. Class participation is not only a requirement in many first-year courses, but is also an important opportunity for budding mental health counselors to develop their interpersonal and professional communication skills. According to the Brandeis Center complaint, despite repeatedly being placed on notice of the developing hostile environment on Brooklyn College’s campus, the administration failed to take the measures necessary to provide Jewish students with a discrimination-free academic setting. “Fighting bigotry should not be a competition between minority groups; it’s not a zero sum game,” stated Denise Katz-Prober, Brandeis Center Director of Legal Initiatives. “Yet, once again, in a university program for mental health professionals, Jews are told they must identify as white, are called privileged, and are accused of being oppressors. This runs completely counter to Jewish history. It utterly ignores centuries of Jewish discrimination and murder, which we are frighteningly seeing resurface, and it promotes dangerous age-old anti-Semitic tropes concerning Jewish power, conspiracy and control. Training mental health professionals to oppose racism is a laudatory and important endeavor, but you can’t erase, let alone promote, anti-Semitism in the process.” A similar complaint, filed by the Brandeis Center alleging anti-Semitism at Stanford University, is currently being reviewed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH). It alleges that Stanford’s Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS) division created and fostered a hostile and unwelcoming environment for Jewish mental health professionals in its DEI program by advancing the same narrative — that all Jews are white and privileged and therefore contribute to the systemic oppression of people of color. EEOC Commissioner Andrea Lucas recently called those allegations, “deeply troubling.” Lucas specifically highlighted serious concerns about the “segregation of Jewish employees in white affirming and white passing affinity groups, separated out from other individuals of color” that took place at Stanford during CAPS DEI training. In announcing it will investigate the Brandeis Center’s allegations of discrimination and harassment by faculty and students, OCR clarified that course assignments and instructional materials will not be considered, as they fall outside the Department’s purview. Those were included as background materials to support the allegations, and the Brandeis Center did not expect OCR to investigate them separately. Numerous universities, including the University of Illinois, Williams College, the University of North Carolina, Duke University and NYU, have agreed to implement steps to combat rising anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination threatening Jewish students on their campuses. In addition, the University of Southern California recently announced measures to combat anti-Semitism that has created a hostile environment for many Jewish students, including the establishment of an Advisory Committee on Jewish Life and ensuring Jewish representation in DEI efforts. About The Louis D. Brandeis Center: The Louis D. Brandeis Center, Inc., or LDB, is an independent, nonprofit organization established to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promote justice for all. The Brandeis Center conducts research, education, and advocacy to combat the resurgence of anti-Semitism on college and university campuses. It is not affiliated with the Massachusetts university, the Kentucky law school, or any of the other institutions that share the name and honor the memory of the late U.S. Supreme Court justice.
JNS ~ By Sean Savage ~ (February 3, 2022 / JNS) The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has announced that it has opened a formal investigation into a complaint alleging Jewish students at Brooklyn College have been subjected to severe and persistent anti-Semitic harassment from both professors and peers. The complaint—submitted by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law on behalf of Jewish students in the school’s Mental Health Counseling master’s program—alleges that Brooklyn College has allowed a hostile environment to proliferate on its campus in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It outlines how professors have maligned Jews on the basis of race and ethnic identity, advancing age-old anti-Semitic tropes concerning Jewish power, conspiracy and control, and endorsing the narrative that Jews are “white” and privileged, and therefore contribute to the systemic oppression of people of color. “Fighting bigotry should not be a competition between minority groups; it’s not a zero-sum game,” said Denise Katz-Prober, director of legal initiatives at the Brandeis Center. “Yet, once again, in a university program for mental-health professionals, Jews are told they must identify as white, are called privileged and are accused of being oppressors. This runs completely counter to Jewish history.” According to the complaint, “by advancing the racist and ethnic stereotype that all Jews are ‘white’ and ‘privileged’—and therefore oppress people of color—faculty members, students and course assignments in the [Mental Health Counseling] program invoke the classical anti-Semitic trope that Jews possess disproportionate power and influence in society, which they use for nefarious purposes against non-Jews, while also subjecting them to racial stereotypes about ‘whites.’” The complaint documents several examples of harassment of Jewish students. For example, in a WhatsApp student group chat, a student expressed her desire to strangle a Jewish student and others showed support. When another Jewish student came to the victim’s defense, the person who made the attack accused the Jewish student of being racist, claiming they were “part of the dominant culture” of “white people” who “continue to perpetuate power structures.” Another example documented in the complaint detailed that when a Jewish student tried to explain to an administrator that Jews should not have to identify as white, the administrator told the student that was a foregone conclusion. “I’m a Hispanic person of color. And yet even I was told by faculty and administrators in the program that because I am Jewish, I enjoy the privileges of whiteness and that my skin color would not save me. My identity as a Jewish person of color was invalidated and erased in this program,” a student, who wished to remain anonymous over the fear of retribution, told JNS. “I was then vilified and harassed for an identity that was imposed on me by others—that of a privileged white oppressor of people of color.” While the OCR is legally obligated to evaluate all complaints it receives, it only pursues investigations into those it determines to warrant a more thorough investigation. A similar complaint has been filed by the Brandeis Center alleging anti-Semitism at Stanford University; it is being reviewed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. The latest complaint comes amid growing concern over anti-Semitism on campus. A number of schools, including the University of Illinois, Williams College, the University of North Carolina, Duke University and New York University have agreed to implement steps to combat rising harassment and discrimination threatening Jewish students on their campuses. The University of South California has also announced concrete steps to address campus anti-Semitism, including the creation of a new Advisory Committee on Jewish Life.